Tag: Death

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Rough Francis: The Progeny of Death

My last post was about the strange tale of the First Punk Band, Death. In that post I mention the strangest part of the story: Rough Francis, a band whose members are descendants of the members of Death, found out BY ACCIDENT that their ancestors were in a band in the 70s!

Here is a brief history of Rough Francis.

Not the band. The person.

Do you remember David Hackney from Death? After Death disbanded, he and his brothers still attempted to carve out a career in music. They each worked on different projects, and none of them were successful. David, as he continued his career, adopted the stage name Rough Francis. Unfortunately, he was only able to release one single before he died in 2000.

The name lives on!

Unknowingly walking in the footsteps of their father and uncles, the three sons of Bobby Hackney decide to form a punk rock band. In 2006 the three brothers, accompanied by other band mates were a Bad Brains cover band (AWESOME!!!!)

It was around that time that they discovered the legacy that they were carrying on. One of the brothers stumbled upon a Death single on the internet. Eager to honor their father and late uncle, they named their band Rough Francis and learned to play songs by Death.

In 2008, Death was able to live again (sorry about the bad pun) as Rough Francis preformed 7 of their songs. This lead to the rediscovery of the OG Punk band, and the creation of the documentary, A Band Called Death.

That is the story of Rough Francis!

Remember that the most punk rock thing you can be is unapologetically you!

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I Don’t Care What You Say; DEATH is the FIRST PUNK BAND!

Let’s talk about Death. Not the end of life. Not metal band with the same name, but the Proto-Punk band called Death.

Death (protopunk band).JPEG.jpg
From Wikipedia.com, this is a photo of the three original members of Death.

I was born in the 1980’s so I didn’t witness the cultural impact that the Beatles had when they preformed on Ed Sullivan in the 1960s. I am not a huge Beatles fan by any means (My husband is the Beatles Fanatic in our household), but I acknowledge that I will forever be in their debt. Much of the music that I adore would not exist, if it wasn’t for the “Fab Four.”

According to legend (and the people who edited the Wikipedia article about Death) Bobby, Dannis, and David Hackney watched that history altering moment when the Beatles preformed on Ed Sullivan in 1964.

The Fates smiled on them, and the universe decided that Punk Rock should be a thing because the next day, David found a guitar in an alley. Just waiting for him. He and his brothers would form a band called…Rock Fire Funk Express. That is the best name ever, and I am a little sad that they changed it.

The reason why they changed their name is understandable. David convinced his brothers to change their name to Death after their father died.

This band was only active for 1971-1977. Then they disappeared into obscurity after recording only 7 songs. Most people would never hear of them, and that was almost the end of their story.

Then there was a miracle.

If it wasn’t for the movie, A Band Called Death, most people would have never known that they even existed.

Even their children didn’t know they existed. According to a 2013 WIRED article, one of Bobby Hackney’s sons happened to stumble across one of the 7 tracks Death recorded in the 1970s. He recognized his father’s voice and was blown away. His dad was a Punk Rocker.

What makes this story so weird is that the decedents of Death had their own band, Rough Francis (more on them in a different post).

I can’t give away many more details than that without spoiling the film, but the bottom line is this:

Death was a Punk band in int very early 70s. They almost faded into obscurity with out any acknowledgement that they were (one of) the FIRST (proto) Punk Bands, and they deserve to be prominently feature in the Pantheon of Pioneer Punk Rockers.

That is all I have for today. Remember: The most punk rock thing you can be is unapologetically YOU!